The Screams of Melgrove
by TheShadowArchitect
Summary: In Avril MA, 1934, a madness plagues the people. In 1999, two teenagers find the ghost of a man in a blue pinstripe suit. How are thse related? Is the man really dead? And if not, what do they need to do to save him? Based on Scythe the Wicked's story.
1. Arrivals

This Fanfic is based off of www. hauntedhospitals. com by Sythe the Wicked. It is recomended that you read that first.

31st of October, 1999

An autumn dampness had set in and an eerie fog was creeping across the ground. It was by no means cold enough to warrant anything more than a windbreaker, but even so, Daniel Parke was shivering. When he had agreed to spend the night at the old insane asylum it had been July, and from the outside the dilapidated stone building had been less than scary-looking. The windows had been broken, sure, and several of the ancient window bars had been corroded away, but for the most part the old stone building had looked nicely unthreatening. Well worth a fifty dollar bet that he couldn't spend the whole night.

"Well, are we going in or what?" Jess, his girlfriend complained. She was only there to show him up of course, she certainly wasn't as scared as he was of the place. Jess looked at him with a mischievous smile. "You're not scared, are you?" she asked. Daniel stood there, shivering as before. He didn't answer. "Aww come on, Daniel, nobody's ever been hurt in the Melgrove Asylum." She teased him.

"Try telling that to Bryce." He replied coolly. Bryce Kern had gone into the asylum on a dare three years ago to the day. So the legend went; he was never seen again.

"Bryce moved to Arizona, Daniel. His friends thought it would be a good sendoff to make it seem like he died in there." Jess corrected him smugly. Daniel wasn't sure he could trust himself to speak.

"Let's just get in there then?" he forced out, reaching down to pick up a small backpack of supplies that Jess had packed for them. He looked over at her, primarily for reassurance. She had a sleeping bag under each arm. "Are you sure you want to do this, Jess?" Daniel made one last attempt to wriggle out of the bargain. If it was Jess who didn't want to, there was no way the boys could hold it against him for very long.

"Me?" Jess laughed. "Are _you_ sure?" Daniel faltered, looking sheepishly back at his girlfriend. She nodded at the front door encouragingly. Daniel gulped.

30th October, 1934

The TARDIS materialized unnoticed in a small forest. She shook herself a bit, settling into the new surroundings, doing checks she had been programmed to do, but knowing that the Doctor would probably ignore their findings. It wasn't as if he hadn't been to the planet before.

He was the first person out, as per the usual; taking in the cool autumn day like he meant to be there. He felt the crunch of dead leaves under his Converse, smelled the crisp, musty smell of fall, and looked as if there was no place in the known Universe he would rather be. Martha came out slightly more cautiously, as though waiting for something to attack. When nothing did, she eased herself out and looked around.

"Smell that!" The Doctor cried. "Dying maple photosensitive cells and campfire smoke, it _must_ be. We've landed in autumn in New England, I think; yes, Massachusetts, definitely Massachusetts!" He paused. "Ooh, a few more days and this tree will be absolutely gorgeous." He pointed at one of the Maples. Martha looked around them. It was Earth, certainly, a little disappointing to be perfectly honest. And a little scary, though she had no idea why it would be. She shivered a bit involuntarily, something the Doctor didn't notice. He was still busy admiring the trees.

"Doctor, when are we, do you think?" she asked hesitantly. The Doctor looked around for a few moments, breathed in, picked up some dirt.

"1930's, or sometime around then." He looked at his watch. "Ah, so close, 1934." He set off walking in what Martha thought was no particular direction. "Come on, let's find some civilization!" She followed.

About ten minutes later, The Doctor stopped abruptly. Martha, who was boredly admiring some leaves overhead, nearly crashed into him.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Dunno, I thought I heard someone scream." Martha listened hard, but she couldn't hear anything.

"Are they still screaming, or did they stop?" she asked him when she was sure the woods were quiet.

"They stopped, but it's weird, I don't really know how to explain…" He cut off, looking into the forest. "There it is again." He said. Martha hadn't heard a thing save for a rustling of the leaves overhead.

"I didn't hear it." Martha said. The Doctor seemed puzzled for a second and looked about to say something, but kept his mouth shut, listening intently to the nothing.

"This way, come on!" He pointed into the forest and began to run, presumably towards the screams he had heard. Martha followed out of instinct, but a few paces behind, still listening for a scream in the woods.

A few moments later they came upon a gravel road and the Doctor stopped suddenly again, scattering gravel as he skidded to a halt. The road was covered on both sides by the yellowy trees, and very thin, as though it were more a driveway than a road. There was barely room for one car and no shoulder to pull over on. The Doctor looked up and down the road. One end stretched into nothing, while the other had widened further down. The Doctor pointed to the widening end.

"That's where it's coming from, Martha!" and took off running again. This time Martha had trouble keeping up.

They ran until the woods ended, and indeed the road as well. Martha's guess that it had been a drive was apparently correct. There was a grand looking stone building, about five stories high, made of cream-colored sandstone and dark wrought iron at the end. Out to the right side the gravel drive ended in a car park and there were several vintage-looking cars in it. There she was, in 1930's USA again, and this time the place looked much richer and impressive.

"Ah, Dr. Riley, how good of you to come so soon!" Both Martha and the Doctor spun around to face the speaker, who seemed to be talking to the Doctor. He was a plump man, slightly balding but overall looking very happy to see them. He held out his hand for someone to shake it; The Doctor stepped forward.

"It's good to be here, Mr.…?" The Doctor said in his best 'Fishing for information' style.

"Ah, right, of course, we haven't met face-to-face yet have we? I'm Dr. Justin Miller, head of Psychiatrics here at Melgrove Mental Hospital. I'm the one who's been writing the letters. I thank you for coming of course, though we have to admit we weren't expecting you for another week, you'll understand if your rooms haven't been done up yet."

"Quite alright, we were able to move up the flight to yesterday, it was last minute for us as well." The Doctor said. It was always a wonder to Martha how he was able to lie so easily and yet be so believable. "Introductions! Of course, I'm the, er, Dr. Riley and this is Dr. Martha Jones, she's in training still, doing her psychiatrics rotation so I thought I'd bring her along for the ride." If Dr. Miller found anything strange about these statements he hid his surprise well. Then he pointed at the building behind them.

"Right this way then, we can set you up in a guest office while a nurse fixes your rooms, if that's alright. We'll give you the day to settle in and then we can get to work first thing tomorrow if you wish. Come on, right this way!" The Doctor and Martha followed him inside.

R&R


	2. Screams and Rumors

31 October, 1999

Daniel's tennis shoes crunched shards of glass against the floor of the asylum. It was the most terrifying place he had ever been, by far. Jess was holding a battery-operated lantern, and the harsh white light of the LED bulbs made everything seem cold and sharp. Shadows danced in the corners of his eyes and he jumped at every movement. Jess also seemed to be slightly less cool than before. Even in the cold dark of the room, he could see small beads of sweat on her forehead. The light of the lantern cast a ghoulish glow on her face so she looked like a skeleton in a grey hoodie.

"Do you want to have a look around or set up camp in here?" Jess asked quietly. Daniel nearly jumped out of his skin. It was the first thing she had said since they had entered the building five minutes ago.

"What do you think?" he asked. His voice sounded small and echoic in the large stone room. In his opinion, the room seemed far too open, but at the same time, the thought of trapping himself in a smaller one was even more terrifying.

"We should find somewhere cleaner. Let's leave the stuff here for now, everything we can do without, I mean, and have a look around, see if we can't find a place less covered in glass shards." So they did. Jess set the sleeping bags down and Daniel pulled the unnecessary weight out of the backpack. He wasn't proud enough to not run from something scary at this point.

They continued to search the old building. Paint peeled from walls, furniture was broken, old machines and other supplies seemed to just have been abandoned in the dilapidated rooms. They came to a hallway on the fourth floor with what Daniel thought had to have been patients rooms. Jess called out from just behind him.

"I'll take that side, you take this one." Jess said. Daniel was about to argue. He didn't want to be alone, but it seemed foolish to be such a scaredy-cat when his girlfriend was actually suggesting they split up. "Suck it up, Parke," he whispered to himself and started on his row. His flashlight's beam wasn't as strong as Jess's, and his eyes once more acclimated to the yellowy gloom. A few rooms in he heard Jess call out.

"Hey Daniel, did you just scream?" She asked. Part of it sounded like she was teasing, the other part sounded scared out of her mind.

"No, why?"

"I thought I just heard something…Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"And you didn't just hear someone scream?" She asked; her voice was small and scared now. The way Daniel was picturing his own.

"No."

"OK" Jess was silent for a while after that, and Daniel couldn't blame her. Every sound that was made here echoed into ghostly tenor.

Daniel entered a room close to the end of the ward and found it to be different than the others. Inside there was no bed, only what looked like an old exam table and a strange machine with wires hanging out and three dials on the front. Daniel reached out to touch it, brushing off fifty-some-odd years of dust and debris. The dials looked ancient, but there were still numbers, clearly visible, on them. The ones on each side went 0-6, and the middle went through 12. Daniel shivered involuntarily again. Then he heard Jess scream as the thunk of a lantern hit the ground.

30Th October, 1934

The Doctor paced in the quiet office, seemingly deep in thought. He looked nervous. Martha leaned against a wall and picked absentmindedly at a bit of paint. It was getting later in the day and they had been in the room for hours. Sunlight was already waning and there were long shadows creeping silently across the floor. Martha had suggested that they go out to have a look around, and the Doctor told her she was welcome to, but that he wasn't coming with. There was something on his mind that was troubling him. Ever since the woods he had been on-edge and the way he jumped at every noise was now beginning to worry her.

"Dr. Riley, are you still in there?" Martha would have laughed at the way The Doctor nearly jumped out of his skin, except for the fact that he genuinely seemed scared.

"Yes, I'm in here!" He recovered quickly and gave a warning nod to Martha. "Ah, Come in." Dr. Miller walked in, looking a little confused.

"Your rooms are ready; they're down in the staff guest quarters. Here are your keys." He handed them each a small silver key. "Be careful to lock your doors at night, some say the hospital is haunted." he chuckled jovially and pointed down the hall. "The stairs are that way and the staff quarters are on the third floor. I apologize that I will be unable to escort you to the rooms, but they are clearly marked, and I am confident you will be able to find them. Supper is served at seven in the dining room; you will be welcome at the staff table." Martha looked at her watch, which unhelpfully read three am. Sometimes she didn't realize that Time travel lead to just as much jet-lag as regular travel. Martha wasn't hungry at all.

"If you would be so kind, Dr. Miller, what sort of haunting is said to take place here?" At this Miller's face drained of color.

"I-I don't have time to tell ghost stories! I am very busy right now!" He said, looking up and down the corridor as if a ghost was about to jump out at him from one of the other offices. With that he left the Doctor and Martha standing there in the doorway, slightly bemused.

"Was it just me or did that seem a little suspicious?" Martha asked. The Doctor turned to her.

"Very." He said, looking cautiously behind him before exiting the room and shutting the door tightly behind them.

"Should we check it out?" She asked, trying to prompt his usually swift 'of course'.

This time he surprised her.

"Not yet, this could be dangerous. I'm sure whatever is scaring Miller will make itself apparent." this left Martha wary. The Doctor rarely backed down because something could be considered dangerous, and he rarely overreacted. Something was up.

The offices corridor seemed very empty to Martha, all the staff were clearly getting ready for mealtime or something. Golden light streamed in from large windows, showing that they would be soon expected in the dining room. Suddenly, the Doctor stopped cold.

"What is it?" Martha asked, but her question was ignored. The Doctor took off running towards the staircase.

"Upstairs, fourth floor, d'ya think?" he asked, whipping around, but didn't wait for an answer. He took the stairs two at a time, barely pausing for Martha who was very confused and more than a little unnerved by his sudden action.

"What's on the fourth floor?" Martha cried out to the back of the Doctor's head. He stopped on the third floor landing and his face whipped around, confused.

"You mean you didn't hear that?" he asked, suddenly looking very concerned.

"No, what did you hear?"

"Somebody screamed. You had to have heard it that time, there was no way you couldn't have!"

"What did it sound like?"

"Well, well, it was a scream; I can't really explain what it _sounded_ like. Ah, Bloodcurdling? Painful? I don't know?" He paused, drawing in breath. "It was just a scream, but if you can't hear it..."

He paused again, looking up the stairs. Then he turned to Martha with a concerned look on his face. "That means that either something is making only me hear it, or something is stopping you from hearing it."

"What could do that?" Martha asked.

"Well, quite a lot of things actually, and quite a lot of people too… And the thing is this kind of thing is usually a front or lure for some bigger thing." He stopped dramatically and ran his fingers through his hair, doing nothing for how messy it always was. "Oh, I really hate it when this happens..." Martha felt a shiver go down her spine again like what had in the woods earlier. She was however optimistic. The Doctor was at least taking interest now.

"So nobody's screaming?"

"So maybe somebody doesn't want anybody to know anybody's screaming but whatever they're using isn't working on me."

"So some kind of psychic thing?" Martha asked.

"Or sonic interference of some sort. I mean, it could be psychic but that would have to be immensely powerful to work on me so completely. Sonic would be easier."

"What are we going to do about it?" Martha asked.

"Now? Well, now we'll have to gather some information, find out what people know or what they think they know and hope we can figure who's screaming from that." With that said the Doctor turned back down the stairs and disappeared from view. Martha stood a moment longer on the landing, feeling very wrong about the situation. She had faith that the Doctor knew what he was doing, but somewhere deep inside told her that there was more to the story than what the Doctor made it out to be.

* * *

The dining room was loud and filled with doctors, nurses, patients, aides and other staff working hard to make sure the place was running smoothly. It was nearly uncomfortably full and a bit claustrophobic, but if the Doctor found this distracting he hid it well. Martha wasn't sure how much more of it she could take. They were seated at a large round table with Dr. Miller and a nurse named Winnifred Dearly. The rest of the staff had either already eaten or were delayed dealing with patients. They ate in silence for a while, before the Doctor started a guarded conversation.

"Has anyone heard any screaming lately?" He asked of no one in particular.

"Right down to business as always then, is it?" Miller responded. The Doctor looked mildly surprised for a moment before shaking it off. "As I have told you in the letters, there has been a great influx of patients complaining of hearing non-existent screams. They claim to hear someone, usually someone they know or love, screaming, even when the person is nowhere to be found. It is not too long after that they fall into insanity and are brought in for treatment. Unfortunately, we have no control over it and nothing we do here seems to make the slightest difference. It is the strangest thing, only Averill seems to be affected. It is as if there is some kind of contagion in the local environment causing the madness, but we have looked for fungus, bacteria, everything we can think of, but there is no physical cause we can find. It has baffled everyone. Do you have any idea as to what could be the cause, Dr. Riley?" The Doctor, who had been listening intently to Miller's speech, seemed to be deep in thought.

"No treatment at all?" The Doctor asked. He looked over his shoulder at a table of patients, memorizing each of their faces in turn before turning back to Miller.

"Nothing long term, but since my last letter we have had temporary success with an electroshock therapy machine on the highest setting. We refrain from using this though, brain death occurs in about thirty percent of patients." Martha nearly choked.

"_Thirty_!" The Doctor shot her a look that told her to keep her mouth shut; and Martha realized grudgingly that it this day and age, those were acceptable odds for first-time experiments. Miller ignored her outburst.

"How temporary?" The Doctor asked; eyes intense.

"A couple of hours, maybe, nothing substantial. But this is our most successful treatment so far and we're looking at safer alternatives." Miller said.

"You can't turn down the machine to a less lethal level?" Martha asked.

"No, unfortunately every other setting just increases the insanity. If you could help us, Doctors, it would be appreciated."

"I apologize if this is none of my business, but have you noticed any abnormal patterns in other areas? Anything having to do with certain patients, rooms, actions, anything out of the ordinary?" The Doctor asked. Miller saw right through it.

"If this is an attempt to gain information about the alleged haunting, I must tell you that you will get no more from us. It frightens the patients." Miller bristled. Nurse Dearly however, who had been silent so far in the conversation spoke up.

"I didn't notice it before, but now that you say so, Doctor, the last sighting did correspond to the last successful attempt to use the electroshock treatment." she said nervously, evading Miller's eye.

"What do you mean, _the last sighting?" _The Doctor asked, genuinely curious. But before Winnifred could say anything more, Miller rose.

"You will say nothing further of the matter, Nurse Dearly!" he exclaimed. His voice betrayed anger, but his face was underscored with fear. The Doctor looked up at him, only mildly surprised by his action.

"Dr. Miller, if there is a viable connection between what you and your staff perceives as ghosts and a rash of insanity, and there may well be one here, I think it ought to be brought to attention." He said calmly, but his voice held an edge of something slightly less pleasant. Martha knew he was holding back, she had seen the look before. She waited intently for a rebuke but that was apparently all Miller had to say on the matter, as he then excused himself, muttering somewhat loudly about wastes of time.


	3. The First Half of a Very Eventful Night

Later, back at the guest office The Doctor and Martha pieced together what they'd heard. What they were coming up with was less than substantial. Admittedly they knew more than before, but what they did know now Martha almost wished had been left unsaid. The Doctor was infected (If it could be called an infection) with an insanity that had no terran explanation, or at least, that was most likely. There was a small chance that it could be from some other time as well.

"Why do you think that the shock treatment works?" Martha asked of the Doctor, who was deep in thought.

"Huh?"

"The treatment Dr. Miller described. The one I thought was barbaric. Why did it work?"

"That's a good question. I think it has something to do with the sonic interference, the electricity changes the brainwaves just enough to change the effects of the sonic field on that particular human."

"And it takes a few hours to re-establish the connection or re-calibrate the field or something?" Martha finished.

"Yeah, that's good. You should do this for a living, Martha," he said. "But there is something it doesn't explain."

"What's that?"

"A sonic field could be powerful enough to recall the memory of something, say a scream, from a human subconscious. But there's virtually no way something like that could drive someone to insanity that quickly. Maybe years on end of that, but that person would certainly notice after a while. And you'd probably get help after a while if you were hearing non-existent screams for years on end."

"So the insanity is something else?"

"Has to be."

"Do you know what that is?"

"Not a clue." He paused for a second, as though phrasing his next words. "I may find out soon though, I've already heard the screams." They both sat in silence for a few moments after that. Neither of them had wanted to bring this up.

"But we'll figure it out before that though, right?" Martha asked. She hadn't forgotten about the Doctor's hearing things, but then, they had found out that he might not have as much time as they thought to solve this mystery.

"Yeah..." he said, not meeting her eye. Then, changing the subject. "I'm going to go bring the TARDIS closer to the building. It'll start looking suspicious if we have no luggage." He trailed off and left Martha in the room without a goodbye.

* * *

The forest was dark and cold, sending spidery veins of frost across some of the dead and dying leaves lining the ground. The sky was illuminated only by a bright full moon, whose clean light cut clearly into the trees. Stars scattered the sky. The Doctor's breath billowed out into the dark as he traversed the small forest in search of the TARDIS. His expression was grim. Normally he would have waited until morning, or just before, but tonight it seemed time was of the essence. He needed The TARDIS to be closer than the middle of the forest should something major happen. And he wasn't even sure Martha could have found it on her own if something did.

The Doctor rubbed his hands together. He tolerated cold well, usually better than humans, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it. He played with the idea that it was colder than it should be, but there was no evidence to suggest that there was anything wrong here supernatural, in fact, the many times that he had met 'ghosts' they had had perfectly logical explanations. Many had simply been extra-terrestrial.

The Doctor walked for a little over a half mile before spotting the warm light of the TARDIS windows. He had to say that it was a welcome sight, a little more welcome than he expected for some reason. He came from behind and skirted the outside of her once to examine her faded blue exterior. Everything seemed normal. Too normal, even if that did seem a little cliché. The key slid into the lock easily and he opened the doors, welcoming the warmth and light of the console room.

The Doctor didn't immediately drop his guard, however. He had a malevolent feeling that he hadn't been able to shake since the first scream, and now, even inside his beloved time ship, it had not eased. He leaned over the console screen, studying the intricate circles carefully before typing a command into the salvaged computer keyboard. _Run a scan for psychic fields._

Negative.

_Run a scan for possessive life-forms. Include all on record_.

Negative.

_Run a scan for manipulative sonic fields_.

Positive. A look of worry crept onto the Doctor's face.

_Run a scan for brain wave abnormalities, subject: The Doctor_.

Positive.

_Show abnormalities on console screen_. The Doctor closely examined the spiky pattern of his own brain waves on the screen. At first it was as if there was no difference. Then there was something that chilled the Doctor to the bone. Every few moments, he noticed there was a short, unexplained flat line in the readings. Something was trying to manipulate his brain wave energy. He tried again.

_Re-run scan_.

Positive. The Doctor didn't stick around too much longer after that. He ran to the infirmary, searching through drawers of mismatched futuristic medical equipment until he found two of what looked like tiny dark grey octagons. The Doctor opened the front of his shirt and scanned one with the sonic. A row of three green lights blinked on across the small device. The Doctor held it to the center of his chest, grimacing as it melded with his skin. He looked at a screen across the room which had suddenly come to life. He pocketed the other grey octagon.

"Infirmary computer, isolate brain wave pattern. Subject: The Doctor. Display the live findings on the infirmary console." He watched the screen intently as the spiky pattern of the readings sidled across. What it showed was at least good news this time. There was still an indentation every few moments, but they were much less defined. The Doctor no longer felt the strange malevolence as strongly.

Back in the console room, the Doctor flicked switches and pulled leavers, feeling very much relived, if not entirely comfortable again. He landed the TARDIS just outside the hospital, unnoticed, as per usual.

The office had been empty when he had returned and the lights had been turned off. He had to find Martha and give her the other device. Even if whatever it was wasn't affecting her yet, it may soon would, and he didn't want to take the chance. On the third floor, he noticed that her room was lit. He knocked cautiously.

"Martha, are you there?" he asked. "It's me, I think I have something that might help protect from the insanity. I was right, it was a sonic field, and it's infected me. I need you to come back to the TARDIS with me so I can run a scan, it won't take too long, I promise." Martha didn't answer.

"Are you alright?" The Doctor asked. A sort of creepy feeling was starting on the back of his neck. He pushed it aside; he couldn't give into fear now. "Martha, are you decent? Can I come in?"

"What? Yes, I'm fine." She responded. The Doctor heaved a sigh of relief.

"May I come in?"

"Not right now, I'm kind of tired; I'll come down to the office first thing tomorrow, though." It was against just about everything in the Doctor's mind right now not to make her submit to a scan, but somehow he let her through.

"I need you to do something for me first, Martha. I'm sliding something under the door. It's called a Homeostasis field generator. It's normally used as a kind of life support, but I can modify it so that it works to hold off a sonic field from interfering with your brain function. It may not last forever, what with what we know about the current treatments, but it should last the night, and after that I may be able to recalibrate it for longer. When I send it through, I need you to hold it to your chest for three seconds, alright?" The Doctor said, hoping Martha was listening. "It may hurt for a few minutes afterwards, but that's normal." He added as an afterthought.

"Thanks." The Doctor couldn't tell if it was sarcasm or not. Regardless, he activated the HFG, modified it, and slid it under the door. He heard Martha pick it up and gasp as it melded to her own skin. But she didn't say anything further. The Doctor bid her good night.

"I'll be in the next room if you need anything, just knock!" He said in a friendly manner before entering his own room and getting ready for the night.

Martha was terrified. The screams had started soon after the Doctor had left for the TARDIS and hadn't let up since. Terrible, far more so than the Doctor had let on, had wreaked havoc on her mind. Screams of her family, patients of hers in the A&E, strangers, the Doctor and even herself, all jumbled and crying for help. All she could think was that she was going insane. That the Doctor couldn't save her and that she would die a patient in a mental institution. As a test subject to one of Dr. Miller's experiments.

When the Doctor had returned a brief hope had surged and been quickly silenced by the screams. She had hardly heard him as he had explained what was going on and how to operate the device. She had scrambled to put the thing on her chest, feeling the sudden and unexpected lance of electric pain that issued from it and then the slow burn as it fused to her. The screams slowly quieted until there were very few left. She was finally able to sleep.

It was very early when he awoke. There was no light from the window save for that of the moon and the room was cold in that early morning way. At first the Doctor had no idea what had awakened him. There was no noise, not even that of imaginary screams. Then he saw a shadow moving quietly through the room toward him. He turned on the bedside light, fighting to keep his eyes open as artificial light flooded the room. Martha stood at the foot of his bed in her undershirt, eyes blank and staring.

"Martha?" He asked cautiously. There was no answer. "Are you alright?" He slid out of bed, ignoring the cold tiles of the floor. Martha's feet were also bare as well as her legs and arms; she must have been freezing. "Martha is that you?" He asked even more carefully. There was something very wrong here. She hadn't flinched when he'd turned on the light. Her eyes were unfocused and looked still half asleep. The Doctor backed away from her towards a chair over which was slung his coat.

"This body will not be harmed." Martha said. But it wasn't her voice. The voice was deep and shaky, like it wasn't quite sure of itself yet.

"Oh" The Doctor responded in a whisper. "What of her mind then, her consciousness? Is it still intact?" He asked.

"Affirmative. It is being stored in the body. None of the female will be harmed."

"OK, is it your intent to harm anyone here?" The Doctor asked, still backing toward the chair.

"Yes. It is our intent to harm you. To kill your body and to free your consciousness so that we may use it."

"Blimey, you don't have to be so blunt, you know, I tend to like it more when I have to work to find the answers."

"We have no concept of deception, we will tell you all that you wish to know."

"Why do you need my mind in particular?" he asked.

"Because the knowledge it holds of the worlds beyond this one are great, and we have been trapped here a very long time. Your mind could free us."

"Who is 'us' exactly? Are you a single life form or conglomerate or many species, what?"

"We are nothing and everything; we are the Colony of All." The voice was now confident and much stronger than before. The Doctor feared that it might be finding Martha a compatible host. He had to get it out of her sooner rather than later before the Colony of All got comfortable.

"Alright, Colony of All, one more question, just this one. Why did you go through Martha if the mind you needed was-?" He stopped; a terrified look spread across his face. "Ah, it was too hard, wasn't it? You couldn't directly enter my mind, too many 'firewalls'. You couldn't scare your way in like you did with the other patients because I saw through it too quickly, and by the time you were capable of increasing the sonic interference, I had used the HFG. So you were reduced to the brute force approach. And Martha's dormant mind was weak enough that even with the protection of the HFG, you were able to climb inside. And you know I would never hurt her." The Doctor looked as though he had just eaten something very bitter. "So are you going to kill me now?" He asked. Martha drew a knife. Slightly less than climactic, in the Doctor's book. He had been expecting something infinitely cooler. "Oi! I wasn't finished yet!" He said.

"What more must you say?" The Colony of All asked.

"I must say that you won't be able to kill me, not with Martha's mind in there. She took an oath not to harm and you're using her mind power." Honestly he wasn't sure if this was true or not, but it seemed logical enough and he was playing for time. Plus he was getting just a little ticked off at their confidence. He was a tough person to kill. Knives didn't usually even make the 'danger' list.

"You are incorrect; we will do as we please with this body."

"It was worth a try." The Doctor felt behind him in the pocket of his brown coat. His hand brushed the sonic but he had to keep it secret, not until a life was in direct peril. Though whose life it would be now was up in the air.

"We will harm you now." The Colony of All stated, moving faster than the Doctor could keep up with. But instead of going through his chest or head, as the Doctor had expected, the knife swerved at the last moment, doing little more than slicing into the flesh of his arm. The Doctor gasped, although, truth be told, this was turning into a fairly anticlimactic evening.

"You do know I'm Time Lord, right?" He asked. The wound on his arm bled and hurt like heck, but he was sure that once it was under control there would be no further danger from it. "We don't tend to die of flesh wounds."

"We shall see, Time Lord, we shall see." The Doctor was getting a little tired of the conversation at this point. He pulled out the Sonic and pointed it at the HFG which he could still see glowing green under Martha's shirt.

"So you've done what you've come to do, right? So you have the chance now to leave this body."

"Or you will do what, Time Lord?"

"I'll make you." His face was soft and intense, manic even. They had done what they had come to do and were now just damaging Martha's consciousness.

"Is this a threat?"

"If it has to be." The Doctor said in a way that seemed to betray all the threat he could muster in his injured state. "My screwdriver will change the frequency of her HFG. You'll be forced out. It will be painful, I can guarantee it. You can do it much more safely without my help."

"As it will be painful to your friend." The words told him he was losing the battle of wits, that the Colony of All was getting bored too. This would end fast.

"You've been gone a long time but you've seen into my mind. You know what I've done to save this Universe from the Daleks. If you think I wouldn't do the same thing to you to save this planet, you are sorely mistaken." The Colony of All took one step back. "Because that is what you want isn't it? You want my mind because it will tell you how to take this planet. Well, I like this planet too much. And you're not going to get it. One. Last. Chance." The Doctor nodded toward Martha. The Colony of All didn't move. "Suit yourself." He flicked the switch and Martha screamed. It could have been in the Doctor's head or it could have been real, but the sound was terrifying and painful to his ears. He caught a glimpse of something silvery leave Martha's body before she collapsed on the floor, bloody knife clattering away from her and hitting the wall opposite.

The Doctor ran to her and tried hard not to panic as he examined her unconscious body. She was colder than he thought a human ought to be, but she was breathing normally and he could feel her heart beat steadily under her shirt. When she woke up it might be a different story. He had to get them both to the TARDIS before the scream aroused suspicion. For once he hoped it had been in his head.


	4. The Colony of All

Martha woke on something hard. Her body hurt and her mind felt slow and cold. She couldn't remember how she had gotten here, to the brightly lit and organic looking room, but she felt the safety it was providing her. She drifted for a while, in and out of consciousness. It was hard to move, like her body wasn't obeying the commands it was being given.

A couple of times when Martha awoke the Doctor was there, but more often she didn't open her eyes. The room was too bright and it was too uncomfortable to stay conscious for even a short while without pain. She had no idea how long it had been, minutes or hours or days, but she was thankful the Doctor was being patient. She didn't think she could run right now if her life depended on it.

When she finally regained a sense of normalcy, she sat up and looked around. She was in the TARDIS infirmary, surrounded by the familiarly strange mix of futuristic equipment and semi-organized chaos. The Doctor was nowhere to be seen, but his white undershirt and blue collared shirt were heaped in a pile on one of the other tables covered in, what _was _that? _Blood?_

She looked herself over, finding nothing that would have created that much blood from her (although it _would_ have explained why she was here in the first place.). That left only The Doctor. She didn't really know what his blood looked like; she had rarely seen him with little more than a scratch.

Martha got up and examined the clothes. The undershirt had a jagged hole torn in one of the sleeves, and it looked like that had been where the wound was. Blood had soaked well into it. There was nothing wrong with the blue shirt, but it looked like the Doctor had used it to stop the bleeding. The blood on the fabric looked like a kind of morbid tie-dye.

"Doctor?" She asked hesitantly and then again a little louder. He didn't respond and Martha couldn't see him in the room.

She replaced the shirts in the pile and walked to one of the cabinets which she knew from previous experience contained several pairs of pajamas. She put one on, and though it was a little too big for her she felt that under the circumstances she should be fully clothed.

Martha left the room cautiously, grateful that the Infirmary had stayed in the same place since her last visit. At least she could find her way to the console room from here. Plus her own room and possibly the Doctor's though she had never been there before. She had barely made it five steps down the hall when the Doctor walked around the corner, an apple in his mouth and pulling on a fresh shirt.

"Martha, you're all right!" He shouted, dropping the apple. He stooped to pick it up and then hugged her, nearly crushing her ribcage in the process.

"Doctor, are you? I saw the blood in the infirmary. What happened?" The Doctor let her go and looked quickly at his arm. Satisfied that nothing was soaking through into his new shirt he answered.

"Oh, nothing, just a scratch. There's an entity in the hospital that wants me dead, and it's just doing a really bad job of killing me." There was a slightly uneasy silence and then the Doctor continued. "I reprogrammed the HFGs to change frequencies every hour or so, so we should be fairly protected for a while at least. Are you hungry?" He asked. "The HFGs don't have room for an internal power source, they feed off you and sometimes you need a little more energy. Fruit is best." Martha shook her head. He took another bite of the apple. "Suit yourself." He said; mouth full.

She followed him as he hurried back to the console room and back out the door. Martha almost didn't expect the sudden blast of chilly air that hit them as they crossed the threshold. Thankfully the TARDIS was parked close. The PJs were thin and only well suited to the TARDIS's interior environment.

"We still have a few hours until daylight, you should sleep." The Doctor said once they were safely back in the hospital. It wasn't like Martha needed encouragement on that front. She may have been out of danger, but she had barely slept since she had started travelling with the Doctor, and tonight had been particularly trying. Although, the way the Doctor was talking _he_ didn't seem to need a whole lot.

"What are you going to do?" she asked. He looked away from her, avoiding.

"Nothing, I'll sleep too. Come on." He started back to the staff quarters ahead of her, but Martha remained unconvinced.

"No you won't. Something happened that you aren't telling me." She paused. The Doctor looked uneasily back at her, almost grimacing. "And judging by the state I was in when I woke up, I think it has something to do with me as well. So spill or I'm coming with." The Doctor looked back and forth up the corridor like someone forced into a corner. He seemed to be warring inside. "Come on, Doctor! This isn't something trivial this time! This, whatever it is, affects both of us and if you don't want to talk about your own injuries, at least tell what happened to me. I'm almost a doctor myself now, so if you think that there is no logical explanation at least tell me that! Otherwise," She stopped for a moment, breathing heavily. "Otherwise I need to know what happened to me, you, and whatever is terrorizing the patients." She finished more calmly, "You at least owe it to them." The Doctor still looked extremely uneasy about the situation, but as he looked at Martha's imploring face, he realized he did have to say something.

"Martha, before I tell you what happened you have to promise not to be scared, not to lose your head over this. This was my mistake and I am sorry, but they will take you back in a heartbeat and the HFG won't be able to help you if you panic for even a moment. Is that clear?" Martha nodded in agreement. "Good." He paused a moment as if gathering himself for something. "Earlier tonight you were taken over by an entity calling itself the Colony of All. It saw that I was going after whatever was terrorizing the patients and was getting closer than anyone else so far at finding the answer. It must have realized that my efforts were not purely academic and that I would try to force it out of the hospital should I find it here. It of course, as any creature with an instinct of self preservation, came to find me first. Only it hit a little snag. It couldn't get inside my head so it used yours instead. It came into my room tonight and we had a little chat."

"And you told it to let me go?" Martha asked.

"Of course I did. But as you can imagine respecting my wishes was not incredibly high on its priorities." The Doctor smiled tiredly. Martha hadn't realized that maybe he didn't feel quite as well as he let on. After all, it had been quite a bit of blood.

"So then what?"

"So it tried to kill me, Martha."

"I…" Martha didn't know what to say. If what the Doctor was saying was true, and she was sure it was, she had tried to kill him.

"Don't, Martha. You can't panic. First of all, it wasn't you. Second of all, it did a pretty bad job of it, only got my arm." Martha came forward but the Doctor pulled his arm away. "I'm fine."

"At least let me…" She gestured again at his arm, "It could get infected." She finished, deadpan. He smiled.

"Thank you for the concern, but," he pointed at his chest. "Time Lord, remember? I'm immune to just about everything on earth."

"Did you ever think maybe killing you wasn't what they were after?" Martha asked as he tried to sidle away. He turned around slowly.

"Yes." He said shortly, quietly, almost fearful. Martha wanted to push him further, but she knew he didn't want to talk about it. Sometimes he infuriated her. "Go to bed, Martha. I promise this is nothing dangerous, I'll tell you about it in the morning."

"_What_ about your lifeisn't dangerous, again?" She quipped. He turned and shot her a sad smile, but didn't respond. Martha had a feeling he was protecting her from something; but what, she still had only a very vague notion.

The Doctor stalked quietly down the first floor hallway towards the kitchens. There was something the Colony of All wasn't telling him and it was making him uneasy. He could see that being used as a tactic against him; make him so paranoid that he forgot that if he lost control for even a moment that they could overtake his defenses. What if there had been something on the knife his body couldn't fight? There were bacteria and viruses out there he had never been exposed to, and he had no idea how his body would react to half of them. He could even feel something spreading through his body from the wound…

The Doctor slapped his forehead. He had to stop being like this. Whatever he could feel moving through his body was purely psychosomatic. Maybe it had grounds in reality, but whatever it was, he felt fine now and that was how he had to stay if he was going to save these people and get himself and Martha out alive.

To the Doctor's knowledge the kitchen was the only room in the building that was entirely made of the beige sandstone. During an earlier expedition he had noted that the stone was largely made of quartz crystals and he had an idea he wanted to test. From the way The Colony of All had acted in Martha's body, it seemed that they needed some sort of memory storage device, similar to a computer to survive. The quartz, which could act like silicon chips under certain circumstances, would make a nice hideaway until the Colony could find a victim. This hospital, both made of quartz and filled with potential victims, would make a perfect hideout for that type of life form.

The kitchen was dark and quiet as the Doctor entered. A window on the other side of the room allowed a few rays of stark, clear moonlight to enter, but the rest of the room was bathed in shadow. He was careful not to bump any of the cooking equipment hanging from above as he slowly navigated the primitive appliances.

The Doctor crept silently forward until he was in the middle of the room facing his own haunted reflection in the plate-glass. He pulled out the sonic from his pocket, holding it firmly in his hand as if daring something to attack it. But it wasn't until he had raised it to the ceiling and the tip had lit blue that he felt it jerk out of his hands, hitting the floor with a clatter and skittering to a stop just out of reach.

"So you are here, and you are watching." He said to the walls. "Good." He walked forward a few paces again to retrieve the fallen screwdriver. Once more he found it just out of reach; this time it had been thrown under a stove.

Instead of reaching under to get it, the Doctor returned to the center of the room, facing his reflection in the window. He cleared his throat.

"Colony of All." He addressed them confidently. "I do not mean to harm you now, nor do I intend ever to harm you again. What happened to you during your occupation of Martha was regrettable. I hope our acquaintance does not rest on that event." The Doctor waited a few moments for a reply. The only one that came was a powerful blow to his upper back. The Doctor cried out and fell forward, scraping the palms of his hands against the floor on impact. He coughed, trying to regain his breath as he struggled to his feet again. "Alright, you can manifest into kinetic energy. That's good, you can use that. I'll ask a question. One knock for yes, two for no." A knock followed the Doctor's request. It seemed to come from one of the cabinets that lined the upper walls of the kitchen. The Doctor looked around uneasily. "May I continue?" he asked politely of the entity. One knock followed, then another. The Doctor realized he was suddenly on shaky ground. "I apologize for anything I have done to you, I assure you it was only in defense." He said evenly, with as little hostility as he could muster, but he stayed put in the center of the room facing the window. A glass flew out of the cupboard and shattered near his feet in a very clear 'I'm warning you...' The Doctor took a step back, keeping his eyes out for other flying glassware. When none came, he continued. "I am only here tonight to perform an experiment that I hope will be mutually beneficial. You do not need to be here, you can leave, go haunt some other part of the building for an hour or two, I don't care." The Doctor was once again thrown to the floor, this time onto the broken glass. He rolled aside, but not before his hands were cut open. He hissed in pain, not bothering to climb to his feet.

"Please do not do that again, I am trying to help you!" He said through gritted teeth. He was finding it harder and harder to remain civil. Through watering eyes he saw a silvery cloud of energy float out of the room via the door. The Doctor spared a second to contemplate the irony.

Without getting up, the Doctor propped himself against the nearest stove to examine his hands. They didn't look too bad, but there wasn't a lot of light, and he didn't know how long before the Colony of All returned to reclaim their space. Best that he got on with what he came down here to do in the first place.

He retrieved the Screwdriver from under the stove and stood again in the center of the room. He held it above his head, pointed at the ceiling. This time nothing pulled it from his hands. He was thankful; the sonic was already slippery with his blood. The sound of the sonic reverberated in an encouraging way around the quiet room. The Doctor slipped it back into his pocket and stood very still for a good thirty seconds until he could no longer hear the vibrations in the stone. He walked forward and looked intently into the window. What he saw was faintly chilling. He saw himself, pale and cold- standing a good four paces behind his current position and not moving. He smiled contentedly. "See, no harm done." he said, and strode out of the room.


	5. A Bad Day For The Doctor

31st October, 1999

"Jess!" Daniel shouted. "Jess, are you alright? Jess, What's happening?" but Jess didn't answer. Daniel thought he heard the sound of whimpering coming from the room Jess had been in. "Hold on Jess, I'll be right there!" Daniel rushed out of the room, not knowing what he would find, but not really caring either. Whatever Jess must have found she was now in trouble and Daniel, while scared out of his mind was going to help her, mad as it may seem.

But as he entered the room he found that Jess was not alone. Standing feet away from her was a tall, pale man. He looked tired and drawn, brown hair that looked like it should be standing on end flopped lifelessly in front of his face. He stared at a petrified-looking Jess, whose lantern had fallen to her feet. Fortunately the man needed no illumination. He held a peculiar looking object in his right hand, which glowed blue at the end like a flashlight.

The man didn't look the way Daniel expected a ghost to look. He had all the right hopeless demeanor, he was pale and fragile looking and even a little transparent, but he was wearing clothing that was clearly modern, if a little unorthodox.

"My name is the Doctor." Jess jumped and gave a little shriek of surprise. Daniel, to his own surprise as much as anyone else's, remained still. Somehow, subconsciously, he had expected the apparition to speak. The image faded somewhat and the man held the device to the ceiling. There was a short buzzing sound and he came back into focus. "Sorry about that, please don't run off, I won't hurt you, I just need you to trust me." he seemed to stare intently at Jess, who immediately fought her way past Daniel back out into the corridor. When he chased her out, he found the ghost to have moved there as well. He looked at them sternly.

31st October, 1934

"What part of 'this won't be dangerous' is different in Gallifreyan?" Martha asked. They were in the small office around daybreak, seated at the desk amid the former contents of the TARDIS first aid kit. Martha was pulling bits of glass out of his palms.

"I didn't think it would be." he said shortly. And then "Ow! That hurts!" as Martha pulled another piece of glass from his hand.

"You're allergic to most pain medicine and you won't sit still. Only one of those is involuntary." She quipped.

"I'm trying to be as still as possible, honest. Can't you go faster?"

"You're such a child! Besides, I'm done, and if you don't want this to happen again, I suggest you not get hurt." Martha said exasperatedly. He'd complained practically the entire half hour it had taken her to patch him up.

"To breakfast then!" He said, helping Martha pile the remaining supplies back into the box they'd come from. Or at least, he tried. The bandages made him clumsier than usual. Martha spared him a sympathetic glance as half of the supplies cascaded to the floor.

"Remind me to replace these when we get back to the TARDIS?" she said, scooping them up as the Doctor smiled sheepishly.

Breakfast went pretty uneventfully with the Doctor giving a fairly lame excuse for his bandaged hands, which to Martha's surprise nobody questioned. They sat with Dr. Miller and Winifred again, as well as a few other doctors and nurses, all of whom chatted animatedly with the Doctor about nothing in particular. Whatever the Doctor had discovered the night before, or indeed what he had been up to, was still a mystery to Martha, as he had refused to say anything beyond the odd complaint as she had dealt with his hands. It wasn't for lack of effort though.

After breakfast Dr. Miller lined the Doctor, Martha, and the rest of the staff up to hand out assignments. Martha had assumed that she would stay with the Doctor all day, but Miller had other ideas.

"Dr. Jones, go with Nurse Dearly, she can show you around and get you acquainted with the rest of the staff and routine here at Melgrove. Dr. Riley, you'll be with me." Martha was about to protest but the Doctor nodded at Nurse Dearly before she could open her mouth. She reluctantly followed the young nurse, all of her instincts screaming not to be separated from the only person who seemed to know anything here.

"So what really happened?" Winifred asked, picking up a box of uniforms on the way back from a patient's room. It was mid afternoon and already the shadows were getting longer on the floor.

"Huh?"

"Your friend, Dr. Riley. I haven't been here too long, but the story of how he managed to iron _both_ of his hands while doing his shirts seems a little fishy." Winifred smiled. "I heard some of the kitchen staff say they found a broken glass and blood on the floor. But they couldn't figure out who'd been there. Was it him?"

"I don't know." Martha answered truthfully. Glass and blood lined up with her information, but there was still no proof, and no reason that the Doctor would have gone to the kitchen. Even so, he wasn't usually that clumsy. Why would he break a glass, and then proceed to smash both of his hands into it? Winifred gave her an incredulous look but said nothing.

"Fine, if you want to protect him that's your business, but if I were you, I'd warn him to stay away from the ghosts." Martha blanched.

"Are they dangerous?" Martha asked.

"I don't know. So far they've only gone after people who seem interested in finding them."

"What have they done to those people?"

"Nothing too serious, I think, just scare them off at first. Before Kate quit she could have swore something threw her down the stairs. She was the most interested in the phenomena out of everyone, but she could never find proof. She sometimes showed us these scratches across her back but we all just thought, well, you know..." Winifred trailed off. Martha wanted to ask more, but she felt she would get no more than gossip at this point. Winifred was suddenly very interested in the uniforms.

* * *

When Martha returned that evening in the office, the Doctor was seated at the desk. His hair was disheveled and his head rested on his hands as he stared down at a few sheets of notes that littered the desk, an intense look on his face. They were very clearly not the Doctor's notes. When, very rarely, the Doctor wrote anything down it was in the curling circles of Gallifreyan, not the chicken scratch on the papers before him. Martha read the first couple of lines on one of the sheets. The notes were on the shock treatment.

"Doctor?" Martha asked, although at first it seemed as though the Doctor hadn't heard her. His face was screwed up in concentration as he stared at the papers. Martha wasn't even sure if he was actually reading them.

"Doctor?" She asked again carefully. She couldn't see his face, but for the first time since they'd been here he not only looked tired, but genuinely unwell.

"Huh?" He started, looking up quickly as though surprised by her presence.

"I already know the answer to this, so you might as well tell the truth this time. Are you alright?" She looked at him intensely, trying to simulate the look he used to get people to understand the importance of things. It had virtually no effect on him.

"Martha I'm alright, I'm not great, but I'm not actually ill either. It's all in my head." He smiled at the cliché.

"Are you hearing the screams again?" Martha asked quietly. The Doctor shook his head.

"No, and before you ask, they haven't gotten in yet either." He paused, searching Martha's face for a reaction. "A human's vital functions are controlled for the most part by the unconscious, parts of the brain that don't check with the mind before they act. You don't stop breathing and your heart doesn't stop beating because you forget to tell them to. Even the functions you can control are only up to you for short periods of time, say, if you hold your breath for too long you'll pass out and your body will correct it, providing that there is oxygen to do so with. Time Lords have a little more control over their bodies. This can be a good thing. I can go for longer periods at a time without oxygen if I tell non-vital processes to stop or to slow down. I can produce hemoglobin at a much higher rate, almost instantaneously replacing a lost supply of blood. I can even regulate my immune system by telling it to target or ignore certain foreign bodies." Martha looked as though she was about to say something, but the Doctor cut her off. "For some reason painkillers still get the best of me, but I _am_ working on that." He looked down at the desk again as if trying to focus his mind. When he'd finished he looked up again at Martha, a determined look in his eye. "This does have a drawback though. There is a reason there are no hypochondriacs among my species. If we consciously think there is something wrong with us, our bodies react in that way. Particularly the dying part. There are no safeguards. We tell our body to do something and it happens. For a few seconds last night I considered the fact that the blade had potentially been poisoned. Since then I have not been able to convince my brain otherwise."

"Have you considered the fact that you really have been poisoned?" Martha asked, now very worried. He was a Time Lord and she was stuck in the thirties; the only advanced medical equipment being from the TARDIS infirmary, most of which she had no idea how to operate. If he really was poisoned his only chance was to leave now and find some future hospital that could save him. Something she knew from past experience was unlikely to happen.

"The TARDIS' scans were inconclusive, if there is a toxin in my system it's not being picked up."

"And if it's not picked up on the scans it can't be?" Martha asked, almost sarcastically.

"It's not likely the TARDIS wouldn't be able to identify a harmful compound, but not impossible. I tried an emergency detox to be sure."

"And?"

"And nothing happened; even my body doesn't recognize that there is anything wrong."

"And it's not sharing that information with your brain?"

"Ah, no, it should be, though. With that much overwhelming evidence to the fact that I am healthy, I should feel fine. Which leads me to believe that there is something very wrong indeed."

"There are pathogens on earth that use the immune system as a cover to invade the body. Humans don't even react until they are very nearly dead. Could it possibly be something like that?"

"No, the TARDIS' scans would have found it. She's very thorough. But look at this." He said as he held up two unbandaged hands. There was not a mark on them; they looked as if there hadn't had so much as a paper cut. "My body is working overtime to heal something it can't find."

"What about your arm?" Martha asked.

"None such luck. Whatever healed my hands is completely ignoring it."

"Is there something I can do?"

"Promise that whatever happens tonight, you'll let me do what I deem necessary; you'll need to trust me."


	6. A Plan in Action

"Promise that whatever happens tonight, you'll let me do what I deem necessary; you'll need to trust me."

"You know that's not what I meant." Martha said tiredly. The Doctor just shrugged. "You can't wait a few days until you're stronger? No offense, but you don't look in peak alien-fighting shape right now." The Doctor laughed weakly at the comment.

"In a few days I may not be able to do much of anything. The HFG will keep me alive until I eventually die of starvation, but I'll be unconscious for most of it if nothing changes in the next few hours. If we're going to do anything, it has to be tonight."

"What are you going to do?"

"I have a plan. It's not anything spectacular but there is a chance it could work to both save my life and trap the Colony of All."

"That certainly instills confidence; I'd love to hear it."

"I can't tell you right now, and I am sorry about that, but if there is a chance that the Colony of All can see into your mind, there is a chance that this will not succeed. We need it to, too; if this doesn't work I don't see how anyone is getting out of this alive. Including us." Martha certainly didn't need telling again, and even though she had suspected this for a while now, the meaning of the Doctor actually voicing his concerns aloud carried a terrible weight.

"So what do we do first?"

"In a perfect world, you would go back to the TARDIS and wait there until I came back." He said hopefully, fixing Martha with a serious expression.

"Yeah, that's not going to happen."

"Exactly, so you're going to help me." He pulled a bulky, cylindrical object from one of the pockets of his coat, which, lacking the appropriate coral-esque supports, was draped over the nearest chair instead. "This is a sonic modulator; I stole it from Torchwood the last time I was there. It's basically a low-function sonic screwdriver, but it will work for our purposes." Martha weighed it in her hands. It bore little resemblance to the streamlined metal device the Doctor carried, but as the human equivalent, it was alright. "There are three settings; you control them by twisting the end. The first works to override most controls, basically turns stuff on. The second opens doors, breaks locks and generally fries most electrical things. The third is the one you need to use for me. I don't know what it's _supposed_ to do, knowing Torchwood it's probably something incredible dangerous or stupid, but in an emergency it can record sound and picture onto quartz crystal."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Here" said the Doctor, handing her a small piece of paper. "I need you to record these words onto the rooms specified. Set the modulator to three and hold it above your head for a count of five, you then have about ten seconds to record the message. But remember that you only get one shot, these aren't cassette tapes, and they don't record over. Make sure you say everything exactly how it says on the paper, you won't know what it is that they mean until they are put together with the recordings I'm making. That's the point. When you're finished, return to the TARDIS. I moved her to the basement and blocked off the normal entrance. You'll need to get in through a trapdoor in the first floor Laundry. Any questions?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Same as you, and some…other stuff. I can't tell you right now."

Martha looked down to read the paper. She couldn't make much sense of the words, but she was beginning to see what the Doctor's plan was. It was too easy. The Doctor had to know she would work it out. When she looked up again the Doctor had his eyes closed; his face had gone pale again.

"Are you sure you can do this?" She asked, concerned. Whatever he thought was attacking him was clearly getting worse. He lurched to his feet before responding, relying on the desk for support.

"I don't have a choice." He said gravely, as if it were obvious. "And I'd rather die trying to save the Earth than die in some hospital somewhere." Martha was about to point out the irony in his statement, but he cut her off.

"We'll wait until dark, when fewer people will be about; then, well, then we'll save the Earth."

31st October, 1999

"Listen, I gave you instructions not to run off, if you do, I will not be able to help you. Without my help you may not survive the night." Jess shrieked again, holding onto Daniel like he knew what was going on. "Now that we have that clear, there is a room on this floor with a machine, looks like an amplifier, has three dials. You need to go to that room. Help me." Once again Daniel saw the pleading look in his eye. Jess hugged him tighter than ever. The image disappeared. Daniel looked at Jess. Her face was stricken with fear, tear lines striped her cheeks.

"Jess, I don't know why and I can't explain it, but this man says he can save us and he doesn't feel like a normal ghost to me. I know where the machine is, and I think I can help him. You need to be brave for this OK?" It shocked him how fast Jess had changed from taunting _him_ about being scared to herself a nervous wreck. He hugged her tighter and she nodded tearfully into his shoulder.

Daniel entered the same room as before, to find the man standing over the machine he had looked at earlier. "This is an electroshock therapy machine; it was used in the thirties to help restore sanity to those who heard the screams."

Jess whimpered a nearly unintelligible "That's me, I can hear them." Before she trailed off again, looking horrified.

"I need you to take this to the second floor, room 2234, my friend is there and she will give you further instructions. Turn the dial to twelve, tell her to turn the dial to twelve." He disappeared promptly, leaving them in the room alone.

"Jess, you've got to help me, alright?" Daniel said. Together they carried the heavy machine down two flights of stairs. Never had their footsteps and breath sounded so loud as then. When they'd reached the second floor, Daniel leaned against the "What room are we at?" Daniel said, wiping a fine sheen of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

"I-I don't know." Jess stammered.

"What do you mean?" Daniel asked, looking for himself. All the number plates had been removed. Daniel could see clean grooves in the doors where they had once fitted. Damn.

"Ah, turn the dial to twelve?" he stated cautiously, as though it was some sort of password. For a few second nothing happened, but then, miraculously, there was a flicker and a woman dressed in an old white nurse's uniform appeared. She didn't speak to them, but seemed to be listening intently at the door of one of the rooms. Daniel and Jess rolled the machine to the door to find a young black woman in far more contemporary clothing standing in the room. She wasn't as clear as the Doctor had been, but she looked at them in the same intense way.

"We do not have much time." She recited off a bit of paper. "If you panic you put the world in jeopardy. My friend spoke of a machine. He has told you what to do with it. Bring it to the Laundry."

31st October, 1934

A few hours or so later, Martha and the Doctor separated on the third floor staircase. Martha crept as quietly as she could through the now-empty corridor. It was dark and silent; the only light outside of the odd room was the moon streaming in the window. the ambiance was slightly more menacing now she knew what they were up against. She jumped at every sound, whirling to face imaginary attackers. She _was_ however careful to keep her head. She didn't fall into the tempting panic that rose each time she heard a door close or a patient cry out. She hoped the Doctor was doing as well.

The first room she was meant to go to was an empty patient room on the second floor. It clearly hadn't been used in a while. There was dust on the windowsill and bed as well as the bedside table and chair. The room was unheated. The radiator under the windowsill was ice cold to the touch. Martha shivered. It was late and she was tired, but she had a job to do. She twisted the dial on the Modulator to 3 and held it to the ceiling for five seconds, whispering each number as she went. The walls began to hum quietly in tune with the sonic.

"We do not have much time." She recited off the bit of paper. "If you panic you put the world in jeopardy. My friend spoke of a machine. He has told you what to do with it. Bring it to the Laundry." The hum died down and Martha realized that she had used her time. She stepped back and watched with a sort of half alarm as her own ghostly imaged dissolved into smoke before her. A shiver ran down her spine and she promptly left the room. She still had a few more things to do.

The second room was the Laundry. The first floor was darker than the others, but much more airy than the halls and rooms farther up. The Laundry was entirely made of sandstone, with several washbasins located in the corners and a large table in the middle. On the table stood several piles of carefully folded uniforms.

Martha pulled out the modulator and had started to turn it on when she heard a noise outside the room. Footsteps. Coming closer.

There was nowhere to hide, and Martha didn't think she could open the trapdoor quietly enough to escape detection. She held her breath and tiptoed to the wall with the door. If someone only did a short check, she should be able to blend in for a long enough period of time. The light of a candle began to flicker from the hall outside.

"Who is that?" The voice was small and quiet, coming from just outside the door, and Martha instantly knew who had spoken.

Winifred Dearly.

Martha kept quiet. Winifred was the last person she needed right now. "I know there's someone here, you won't get into trouble, but you need to come out now." She spoke as if to a child. Like she thought it was one of the patients. Martha tried to take a step away from the door, but a chink of rock on the floor skittered away as her foot accidentally kicked it. Outside she heard Winifred stop and then turn toward the room. Martha froze, there was still a chance she couldn't see…

The light from the candle grew brighter, and finally the silhouette of Nurse Dearly entered the room. "Martha? Is that you? What are you doing down here, it must be nearing midnight!" Martha pulled herself from the wall to face Winifred.

"It's nothing, really Nurse Dearly, I was just taking a walk because I couldn't sleep, go on back to bed, nothing's wrong." Winifred stayed where she was, eyeing Martha suspiciously.

"Were you looking for the ghosts?" Winifred said in a very serious voice. "Because I have told you that they only attack those who go looking for them."

"I'm not looking for the ghosts, Winifred. My friend's just asked me to do some things; I'll go back as soon as I'm finished. You don't have to worry." Winifred still did not move.

"I'm not going to leave until you tell me what you've found." Then, as an afterthought, "Don't try to deny it, you and your friend have found something and I want to know what it is. Three years I've worked in this place and so far everyone who has found out anything has ended up mad, dead, or jobless and so far you two have escaped it. I only want to know why." Martha knew she should be finishing, heading down to the TARDIS by now, and surely Winifred wouldn't believe her if she told, but either way, she needed to hurry up.

"Winifred, listen, go outside and wait for about thirty seconds, I promise I'll tell you everything, but you have to do me that one favor." Martha left to enter the room, paper and sonic in hand, ready to complete her job. But as she stepped over the threshold there was a sharp burst of intense pain in her head. She stumbled, and was nearly overcome by the sound of a thousand screams as they flooded her mind in a torrent of sound and agony. Martha had no choice. She held the sonic to the ceiling and began to record, not what was on the paper but what fell unbidden out of her mouth.

"Doctor, please, help me, Doctor! If you can hear me please, Doctor!" But the hum had died down and Martha felt herself falling into darkness. Even her own screams faded from her mind as she fainted.


	7. Saving Winifred

For the first time in a long while, Winifred panicked. Martha lay on the cold stone floor, apparently unconscious after some sort of fit, and Winifred thought she knew what had caused it. Meaning she couldn't just go to Dr. Miller, or anyone else in the hospital for that matter. She leaned down to turn Martha over, but at that moment there was a loud thunk. Dr. Riley scrambled up through a previously unknown trapdoor in the floor.

"Martha!" He held a sort of light to her chest for a second as his face twisted. 'This isn't good." He said, "This is really not good at all." He picked up Martha's body and carefully descended back into the trapdoor. A few seconds later his head reappeared. "Sorry, Winifred, you have been amazing, more so than I can begin to describe. Right now I need you to do one more thing or me and the haunting will be over. I need you to make this door very noticeable to someone who might be looking for it in, say, 70 years. I know that won't make sense right now, but it is necessary. Thank you, Winifred." He looked at her with the sincerest of expressions. "You are brilliant." With that he disappeared below. Winifred waited a long time for him to reappear but he never did. It was light outside by the time she returned to her quarters.

* * *

"Martha, can you hear me?" it was the Doctor's voice, she knew that much, but it was quiet and far away. She felt cold under her. Back in the infirmary, she should have guessed, there was a sore spot on her chest but she didn't remember… "Martha!" She couldn't move, couldn't tell him she could hear him. There was pressure on her leg and a hiss. "Martha! Look at me!" suddenly the world came back into focus. The Doctor was leaning over her, worry etched in his face. "You OK?" He asked intently.

"Yeah…" she replied weakly. Now that she thought of it, she felt like she had before when the Colony of All had taken over her mind. "The Colony…" She tried to warn him but it was too much of an effort at the moment.

"Taken care of." The Doctor said, happily holding out an orb filled with a silvery substance for Martha to see. "Two of the parts, actually, Jess here helped me trap the second." He indicated another bed where a teenage girl in a grey hoodie sat quietly. Another teenager sat beside her, looking worried and disheveled but otherwise unharmed.

"Winifred?" Martha asked.

"Ah, we haven't taken care of that yet. Unfortunately she has the third part, and she'll try to get rid of it by killing herself in 1936 by jumping out of a sixth storey window." He paused, but to Martha's horrified face he added: "We're saving her, though, once you're back on your feet. Time Machine, remember?" Martha relaxed.

"But how did I end up here?" She asked; nothing was making sense. "The last thing I remember was collapsing in the Laundry room. I didn't get across the last message!"

"As for the message bit, Winifred helped with that, and these two are very clever kids." He nodded in the direction of the two teenagers. "I didn't know whether I had a part of the Colony of All in me, so I needed to put us both in full stasis at the same time. When someone is put into stasis, their mind and body are stored separately; so it would have been easy for the TARDIS to isolate the bits of us that weren't us and lock them away. I programmed the TARDIS to then shut down. A dead TARDIS would create a wall of stable dead psychic energy, which would effectively keep the Colony of All trapped until she was restored. That's where they came in." He again gestured to the two teenagers. "I set a series of clues for someone to find in the future that would only play back under certain circumstances. They worked them out and brought the electroshock machine, which, under certain circumstances can be used to 'hotwire' a dead TARDIS. So here we are."

"We owe you two a thank-you then." Martha said as the Doctor helped her off the bed.

"Don't mention it." The boy said, clearly overwhelmed. "I'm Daniel, Jess is my girlfriend; we went into the hospital on a dare. Funny thing is, I don't think anyone will believe what happened, certainly not if we tell them the ghosts were actually you two and a nurse from 1934. Well, maybe the nurse, but they won't believe we actually_ met_ her." He sighed.

"Believe me, I know how you feel. I met Shakespeare, first time out with the Doctor. How do you think my mum's going to take that when I tell her?" Martha said, laughing a little at the end.

"You've met _Shakespeare_?" Jess asked, clearly unsure if Martha was joking or not.

"And loads more." The Doctor added. "But right now there's a nurse in 1936 who I believe needs our help."

"Sorry, but won't that mess things up, you know, if you save her and all?" Jess asked. "I've seen loads of movies and stuff where time gets messed with and then everything changes. Will that happen?" The Doctor looked at her, as if unsure how to explain.

"Normally, yes, saving someone meant to die would be a bad thing." The Doctor began. "But I did some research and it turns out that there are rumors that she lived later, settled down, built a family and all that. Technically speaking she's already been saved. I just haven't done it yet." Jess looked puzzled, but said nothing. Martha could completely sympathize.

About ten minutes later, they were all gathered in the TARDIS console room.

"We need to position the TARDIS directly under the window when she jumps, 'cause they all see her, but they never find a body according to historical records. Now, Martha, you can attest to how wildly inaccurate this machine is." The Doctor said. The TARDIS made a gurgling noise that sounded surprisingly like "only when you're flying." which the Doctor carefully ignored. Martha didn't respond, just nodded in a noncommittal way towards him. "Anyway, so we're all going to have to pitch in. You, Jess, hold that down, and you Daniel, when I say so turn that dial to full, and Martha, pull this." He pointed to a shoelace attached to a doorknob hanging from the ceiling. Martha raised her eyebrows but said nothing. She would suggest going to a parts shop when this was over.

The TARDIS hung in midair, invisible, just below the fifth floor window in 1936. They didn't dare get any closer than that in case the Invisibility Circuits failed unexpectedly and Winifred deliberately missed. He hadn't used them in a while (he had the hardest time remembering where he parked with them on), and they may have been damaged when the Chameleon Circuit was.

The four member crew held their breath as the dark figure of Winifred Dearly, to the sound of shouting nurses behind her, climbed onto the ledge of the sixth floor window. It was open and a breeze ruffled the curtains behind, making the woman appear ghostly in her white patient uniform. She was wailing, terrified, at the disembodied screams. Martha realized what the other staff must be thinking. She was just another person driven to insanity by the screams of Melgrove.

There was a split second of silence as she hung in the air, and then plunged into what the aides would only assume was darkness. There was another second as she fell into the TARDIS when the gravity inverted and she fell the last few feet onto the grated floor.

"Martha! With me!" The Doctor shouted. He picked up Winnie with ease and carried her back to the stasis chamber, Martha hurriedly following. They set it up quickly and placed the still struggling woman in to the nearest pod where she froze behind the bluish glass covering. Her face was contorted in terror and Martha couldn't bear to look at it for more than a couple of seconds. She instead busied herself looking at the bank of screens which monitored the inhabitants of the pods. Only one was lit and Martha stared at it intently, watching as two lines separated on the screen. The smaller one blinked a few times and then disappeared.

"It's gone." She breathed almost unnecessarily. "The third part is gone." She hadn't realized how relieved this information made her.

* * *

"So, we've saved a small town in Massachusetts from madness, saved a planet from dominations by an evil alien entity and relocated and prevented a young nurse with her whole life ahead of her from committing suicide. I think that more than constitutes a day." They were standing in the foyer of the Melgrove Mental Asylum on Halloween 1999. Just minutes after Daniel and Jess had climbed into the basement to find the TARDIS."Now you can tell your friends that one when they ask." The Doctor finished.

"Couldn't have done it without you." Martha added, pulling them both into a half-hug. Daniel wriggled out of it and held up a camera.

"Do you mind if we take some pictures? You know, to prove we'd actually seen ghosts?" he asked quietly.

"There should still be a couple of minutes, you can catch them if you hurry. It'll happen every Halloween from now on though, so if your friends want to see it themselves you just get them to come back."

"Thanks, I guess, for the most terrifying Halloween ever." Jess said, and she actually looked like she meant it.

"Yeah, well, things like that happen. We've had some pretty eventful holidays so far. Basically everything that happens at Christmas revolves around him." Martha said. Jess looked at her questioningly, but then waved goodbye as she followed Daniel out of the room.

The Doctor and Martha took one last look at the empty, decrepit room and walked out, Martha hoping they would never have to go back there again. For a few seconds the wheezing sound of the TARDIS could be heard echoing in the empty building, but then everything went silent and the young couple was left alone in the building, thinking of the fun they'd have next year around this time…


End file.
